Area Commands

[SpoCk0nd0pe]

being good at clicking at rocks is not what's required to use manual reclaim. everybody can click on rocks. being so good at the game that you even have time to click on rocks despite all the stuff that's going on everywhere on the map is what's required to use manual reclaim. and that's something not everybody can do. this is why manual reclaim requires skill, and it's an essential part of the game.

But I thought the trademark of SupCom is, that it is a game that works without very high APM and is all about the strategy. What is really meant by that is not 'remove all APM', it is 'less APM for mundane maintenance tasks'. It's the reason I'm here and not playing SCII with a bigger player base, better balance, and support from a huge company.

ask yourself how much more we have to automate this game until you might as well let an AI do the playing. i'll answer for you: not a lot more, we are almost there. once the game is fully automated and even people with 15 APM can beat anyone, just don't forget it's your robot that's doing the playing, not you in person.

What? Why would a robot do the playing if the UI gets slightly improved? Seems like a very scary straw man...

skill floor and skill ceiling are connected. getting exceptionally good involves diseconomies, meaning each additional unit of skill you build up will be more and more expensive than the previous one. if you add a high "unconditional basic income" of skill, exceeding the average skill level significantly will barely be possible, no matter how hard you try. the statement of some youtube celebrity won't change that.

How is it going to be barely possible if manual reclaim still mostly beats area reclaim? You still need to learn it to get ahead at some level. Area Commands just allows people like me to loose less against mundane tasks and more against an opponent's strategy.

[biass]

This game hardly requires any form of strategy tbh and im unsure why people keep saying it does

go play squad or smth smh

[J0sh]

Go to your Mods folder. Location should be C:\Users\"YOUR USER"\Documents\my games\Gas Powered Games\Supreme Commander Forged Alliance\Mods
There should be a folder called "Area Commands". Open it.
In that folder is a file called "areacommands.lua". Open it with a text editor.
Press CTRL+F and search for "MassReclaim".
You will find a line that looks like this: "if (v.MassReclaim and v.MassReclaim > 0) or (v.EnergyReclaim and v.EnergyReclaim > 0) then"
Replace the words "MassReclaim" with "MaxMassReclaim" and "EnergyReclaim" with "MaxEnergyReclaim".
Save the file.
Now the mod should work as intended again.

Thanks for explanations, I was not aware of that also : "side note modifying the mod just works if you'e trying to run it solo with ai. if with multiple people it'll case desync with those that don't have it" which is a good thing.

[AdmiralZeech]

the arguments in favor of area reclaim are known. everything that's been said here has been said elsewhere months or years ago, mostly by people who have never even used manual reclaim on a regular basis. yet i have to dispel them again to prove i'm worthy of telling the truth?

being good at clicking at rocks is not what's required to use manual reclaim. everybody can click on rocks. being so good at the game that you even have time to click on rocks despite all the stuff that's going on everywhere on the map is what's required to use manual reclaim. and that's something not everybody can do. this is why manual reclaim requires skill, and it's an essential part of the game.

ask yourself how much more we have to automate this game until you might as well let an AI do the playing. i'll answer for you: not a lot more, we are almost there. once the game is fully automated and even people with 15 APM can beat anyone, just don't forget it's your robot that's doing the playing, not you in person.

skill floor and skill ceiling are connected. getting exceptionally good involves diseconomies, meaning each additional unit of skill you build up will be more and more expensive than the previous one. if you add a high "unconditional basic income" of skill, exceeding the average skill level significantly will barely be possible, no matter how hard you try. the statement of some youtube celebrity won't change that.

i'm impressed how people are attracted by the skill requirement of this game, play 1000s of games, arrive at their skill plateau, get frustrated, and then try to reduce the skill requirement of the game instead of improving their gameplay. have you forgotten why you came here?

Ultimately, I guess there's two opposing camps. One that wants the game to be more like Starcraft 1, where you can only select 12 units at a time, and one that wants SupCom to be even more ... SupCom. It doesnt sound like any sort of agreement can be made since those positions are fundamentally opposite.

Almost any sort of hurdle or handicap can require skill to overcome. Like I said, it's not just about skill ceiling / floor. The game could require you to use the mouse to drag and drop chunks of mass from your extractors into your storage, and then into your factories. It would require amazing amounts of micro, multitasking and skill to be able to do that quickly and efficiently in the heat of battle. But does that make it a better game? The important thing is whether the skillful activity is interesting to think about, fun to play, exciting to spectate.

What's the point of having the most skillful game in the world, if its no fun to play and horrifically dull to watch?

Get rid of the boring and bad mechanics (even if they're skillful), and if somehow your game isn't skillful enough, add interesting and fun skillful mechanics.

Heck, even the 12 unit selection limit in SC1 was more interesting, because pros with high APM could do amazing things in combat that normal people couldn't. What does manual reclaim give? "That's amazing play, he's clicking rocks like pro! He'll be able to make at least 20% more tanks for sure!"

TLDR: Get rid of manual reclaim. Introduce 12 unit selection limit lol.

[biass]

I think i get it now, you watch more games then you play?

Area commands or whatever wont make the game any better to watch, hey maybe less fun for analytical casters who cannot see the "rock clicking"

Maybe you're not thinking of the people actually playing but hey, you find a more interesting thing that can replace it, and we talk

[SpoCk0nd0pe]

I'm against area commands. The whole point of manual reclaim is that it exchanges APM and map awareness for better performance. If you remove the APM and attention requirement by automatizing manual reclaim, people with excess APM and excess map awareness wouldn't be rewarded anymore. Yet another hard cap on skill, after 60% of the community already converted to collective nuthouse dual gap.

being good at clicking at rocks is not what's required to use manual reclaim. everybody can click on rocks. being so good at the game that you even have time to click on rocks despite all the stuff that's going on everywhere on the map is what's required to use manual reclaim. and that's something not everybody can do. this is why manual reclaim requires skill, and it's an essential part of the game.

I had a lot of time to play FAF the past week and I thought again about this. I am adding manual reclaim into my initial builds to add efficiency. Tbh, manual reclaim really is about clicking rocks and knowing your build. I've watched many of your vids, you mostly use manual reclaim in your initial build. In team games you sometimes use it when not much happens but that isn't very often.

When people use manual reclaim it is mostly at the start of the game when not much is happening. How to quickly click the right rocks seems to be mostly the relevant skill here.

From you vids, except for the start of the game, you could probably invest the apm into unit micro. Much more fun imho.
Also, learning which trees are groups and which are not is just BS.

I'm also not sure if box selecting the right high mass rocks is really easier then clicking them manually.

[Heaven]

Also, learning which trees are groups and which are not is just BS.

i'm a passionate FAF herbalist, please don't question my profession

[Katharsas]

I have a feeling that there is miscommunication going on here.

Manual reclaim currently is a nicely balanced APM sink (because it rewards efficient use of APM by allowing you to trade otherwise unused APM for more eco). A player that has time to reclaim has to get that time by being more efficient and elegant with the other commands and planning and this (obviously) is a good thing. A game should reward efficient/elegant use of APM.

But viewed in ISOLATION it is not interesting gameplay and also not intuitive(*), some might even call it "stupid". So if tree/rock clicking gets replaced by area commands, a different APM sink (with better gameplay) should be introduced so that the feel of the game stays the same and the game still rewards efficient use of APM. So the discussion should be which gameplay mechanic (old or new) could fill the APM sink better than manual reclaim can now.


(*)Having to explain to friends that they should click certain trees but not others does not really help with the argument that this is a good game (from the perspective of a sane person)

[ZLO_RD]

maybe implement area commands and remove engy attack move from factory?
but i am kinda scared to be responsible for forcing whole community stop useing engi-attack-move-from-factory-bug

[Platinumizer]

quirky stuff like factory attack move and clicking rocks and trees is what makes this game so deep and good, removing this would be like removing its soul. I strongly advise against such thinking